V/H/S/Halloween

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Welcome to another horrifying episode of Bill and Ashley's Terror
Theater on the Marquee. This week is VHS Halloween. Join
us right after we get back from picking up a
few cases of diet fantasma to hand out to children
on Halloween. All that after these ads we have no
control over. Welcome back. I'm Ashley Coffin, joined as always

(00:49):
by my co host and Terror Bill Bria. Bill Darling.
How are we today?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
I'm doing good, ash And I got something in front
of me here. What does that say out? Supra sick
infra super sick infro.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'll say that well before we get into all that.
Do you have any news from an ecronomic kind of
horror you'd like to share with us?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah, a couple of pieces. We have one bad news
or sad news. We have one speculative news, and then
we have one this was ever going to happen news.
So starting with the sad news. If you haven't heard already,
Walmart has bought out the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Pa, Ash Have you been there? Where's no Monroeville.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, it's where they shot Georgia Romero's Down of the
Dead yeah, yeah, nineteen seventy eight, and yeah, Walmart has
bought it and apparently they're planning.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
On knocking it all down and as they do.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
As they do, and it's not so sad in terms
of like, yeah, that's what's kind of happening to malls
in America. The mall you know, culture is kind of
dead at this point, which I mean, that's a whole
other podcast that we could talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
I was a marat why that's sad. Yeah, I was too.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
I lived within walking distance of our local mall, and
it really like it was the mall the movie theater,
and I could walk right a block and a half over.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Well, yeah, they were spaces that you could hang out
and they were you know what they call third arcases, Yeah,
arcades shopping movies or.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
You were us and used to sit out front on
the bench and smoke cigarettes all night.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Oh yeah, you're definitely that kind of.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
We behind the toys of arrasts.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah, no, I was there doing nerdy stuff, but I
was still there. And it's a bummer because, yeah, it's
for a lot of reasons, and one of them is
like this whole the way that shopping has gone all
most completely online, and like you can't you know, easily
try clothes on without returning it in the mail all
that shit. But this is sad more for the fact

(02:40):
that obviously it is a bit of a landmark. They
have a George A. Romero bust or like monument in
there that they've had for years and years. So obviously
that's going to have to be moved or something. And
I don't know what they're planning on doing with that.
And it's been a pilgrimage for a lot of you know,
horror fans for years and years, and so it's gonna
be sad if they, you know, completely get rid of.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
All traces of it.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Monroeville, Monroeville in Pennsylvania. Yeah, I don't know how far
that is from you.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
I'm gonna look. Well. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
In addition to the bronze Bus of Vermero, they also
have a retail store at the Living Dead Museum and
gift shop, which I assume.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Has Oh that's Pittsburgh. That's five hours, five and a
half hours, sorry for me.

Speaker 3 (03:19):
Well, if you and cannever get bored, have a whole day.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
I mean, Pennsylvan has been.

Speaker 3 (03:23):
Oh yeah, no, if you ever driven through Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
You'll know, it's not a small state, kind of simpler
to California in a way, in that way, but the
lengthy it's got. It's got length, not it's got some
wi it's got some width. But yeah, it's it's a bummer.
It's It's also been the location for the annual Living
Dead weekend for the last several years. Oh so yeah,

(03:46):
I guess they're gonna get rid of it by April
twenty twenty seven.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
So maybe you have a year left to make a Bilger.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
I'm not going to Pittsburgh.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
If not, maybe not you, but anybody's listening to this
who's maybe closer or is just that dedicated. But yeah,
it's another end of an era, So goodbye to that.
The speculative news I have is that, uh, you know,
Sigourney Weaver is back in the press because she's doing
a lot of cool projects. She's in the upcoming movie

(04:13):
dust Bunny, directed by Brian Fuller, which I got to
see at Beyond Fest, which I talked about on our Patreon,
I believe, And then she's join our patreon, join our
patreon advertise, advertise, and then there's also her appearance, of
course in the Mandalorian and Groku movie, which doesn't come
out n til next year, but the trailers are playing
now in theaters, so you see her a little bit
of her there. So yeah, so Weaver's coming back in
a big way kind of right now. I love her,

(04:35):
love her, And she's been talking recently about how apparently
she is meeting with the brass at Disney about reprising
Ripley somehow.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
I'm fine with it. Do it, bring her back, baby,
But it's so hard because we've been jumping all over
time so much in that series, So this would have
to be future.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
It would have to be it would have to account
for her actual age, unless they want to do t aging,
which I'm not really hype about if they do go
that route.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
So I really would like with that inn Avatar.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
I yeah, yeah, And at least she's playing like something's
very weird in that, so at least it's kind of
weird enough that you know, a child try James Cameron,
you madman.

Speaker 3 (05:11):
But she's talking. In one of the quotes, she says.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
That, you know, one of the originators of the Alien franchise,
in addition to people like Daniel Bannon around she sat
and Ridley Scott is Walter Hill, the filmmaker in his
own right, who was the guy who did an uncredited
rewrite of the original script along with David Gueiler, And
she says that quote, Walter Hill's a very good friend
of mine. He wrote fifty pages of where Ripley would
be now and they're quite extraordinary unquote, And that to

(05:37):
me is the thing that really intrigues me the most, because,
you know, bringing Hill back in to the fold. I
don't think he's been involved in the Alien movie since
maybe Resurrection if that. I don't know if he was
involved Resurrection much at all, but I know he wasn't
really a big part of you know, the prequels or
Romulus or anything like that. So if he gets involved again,
maybe you know some other people from the old days

(05:58):
that could be interesting. There's no clue in her comments
about like what time period they're thinking of as you
were talking about Ash, So it remains to be seen
what these fifty pages of are about and when they're
set or what have you. So, you know, obviously it's
very early days, but like there's a lot of really
exciting things happening with both the Alien and the Predator.

(06:20):
Franchises right now, and I'm encouraged by everything I'm seeing,
so hopefully, hopefully it happens, whatever that might be. And then,
in terms of sequels you thought would never get made,
a sequel to the Curse of laal Youurona is being made,
called The revel And this is why this is bizarre
because for the longest time, ever since the Curse of

(06:41):
Laurona in twenty nineteen came out, the people behind the
Conjuring franchise have continually talked about how this one doesn't count,
how it apparently is not canon. And then it was
never intended to be, even though the priest character from
the first Annabelle is a character in this movie, right,
and they originally shot, like I guess, a couple Annabelop appearances,

(07:03):
but they deleted. But you know, it was always intended
to be a tie into Conjuring franchise or a spinoff.
So they've sort of tried to distance themselves from it.
And the reasons for that are bizarre. You would think
because it, you know, didn't do very well at the
box office or whatever, but no, it's apparently because producer
Peter Saffron wasn't a producer on it, and I guess
he has to be involved in order for it to

(07:23):
count as a conjuring franchise movie. Whatever. But apparently they're
making a sequel to it now.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
She still can't find her kids kids.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
I don't know if she's gonna be returning, because I
think it's just gonna be a Louronia only returning as
a one character returning, and everybody else is gonna be new,
because people like Jay Hernandez Monica, Raymond, Edie, Gannam, Martin
far Fajardo.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
Was it Linda Carlini?

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Yeah, Linda Carlini is not listed in this cast list yet.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Well, I guess that makes sense. They've moved on from
now they're going to torment somebody else. I like the
Spanish version better. There's one that came out not too
long ago. They have on shutter a lot. That one's
really good.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Right, So the director for this is supposedly gonna be
someone named Santiago MENKINI, Well that's good.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
Who directed No.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
One Gets Out Alive from twenty twenty one, which I
have not seen of you? No? Okay, But apparently Juan James, Wan,
Gary Dauberman are boy, Gary and Emil Gladstone are producing,
and so short of that Atomic Monster, uh, you know Umbrella,
So who knows. I don't know if they're gonna if

(08:31):
this movie is gonna further distance itself from the Conjuring
franchise and be set like, let's say in modern day,
like it could be, you know, do we.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Really need another Lalla Nash.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
I know you hate that that for that question, like
do we really need another? But like.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
It's interesting, I don't know what they're thinking in terms
of like because obviously with the Conjuring franchise, they were
always thinking, oh, let's build up these monster characters outside
of the main series so that the monsters can kind
of come back into the main series maybe at a
later date, which is kind of not what they ended
up doing with Last Strits. Anyway, as we talked about,
go check out our Last Strits episode U plug plug

(09:11):
plug plug plug plug plug. But I don't know what
they're thinking. I don't know if they're thinking this is
just another way to continue the characters that they already have,
you know, ownership over. So like I said, if it's
set in modern day, it doesn't say it is. I'm
just saying I'm speculating here. If it's set in modern day,
or at least a period when the Warns were not
alive or active, you know, that would further set it
apart from the Conjuring universe, and therefore maybe they're thinking

(09:33):
it could be its own separate franchise.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Aside from that priest, I don't think there is any
other times.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
Yeah, it's set in whatever, the seventies, so yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
That's also an odd story to try to bring into
the Conjuring to begin with, because it's such its own set,
you know, folklore.

Speaker 2 (09:52):
Yeah, I'll say, you mentioned the other movie called Alurna,
and I'll say that my favorite Uronia thing is actually
the Monstruus Haunted maze that they always have here at
Halloween Horror Nights and Universal Studios, but they always have.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
A Louronia room.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
They have one this year in fact, and it's always
fun to see like an animatronic like kid being swallowed
by this giant like mouth.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
You know, almost like I'm always here for killing the kids,
wait till we get into our feature film.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
But yeah, so so yeah, I don't know what this
could be. I don't know if this is like an
indication of what they're thinking of for like future Conjuring
related movies, because we talked about that in our last
rights episode. You know, if they're going to try and
do more movies with these monster characters without the Warren's involvement,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
So I'm not thrilled about this one. I mean, this
story has I mean, this ghost haunting kind of has
an ending, so I don't know why you would want
to do it again unless it's somebody else. It's kind
of like the Ring, like, oh did you watch the videotape?
That makes sense? How are we going to like bring
lie your on a backup? And it's like, oh, more
kids to get and more people to kill? I gess.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
I guess it does have the real life you know,
religious or mythological connotations and history and all that, so
at least it's you know, but it's like you did it,
you did it, Yeah, you did it, and other people
have done it, so yeah, I don't know what they're thinking.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
I feel like they're grasping us some strolls, and I
don't like it. Why don't we create some original content?
Like I would almost prefer a movie of them going
forward with the Crooked Man over a Lali Aroona too.
You know.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yeah, no, it's really but I don't want that really either. Yeah,
it's not like, Wow, we got to have Crooked Man.
Yeah no, it's uh, we don't need the Crooked Man either.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
I don't know what they're We'll see what this if
it actually gets made. It sounds like it's on the
track to get made, so and what happens to it,
we'll see.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
That's it, all right, Well, we will be back with
our feature film after these miss ups from the grave
that we have no control over, and now it is
time for our future film. Okay. I'm actually surprised that
it took the VHS franchise this long to do Halloween.

(12:02):
What do you think?

Speaker 2 (12:03):
I'm too, although I guess you could sort of say
they skirted the issue by having the final segment of
the very first VHS be set on Halloween. It's even
named after Halloween. It's called ten thirty one ninety eight.
And for those who don't remember, that was the really
kind of the debut of Radio Silence as directing.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
I haven't seen I've seen all of the VHS's once
and I have seen all of them, but only once. Yeah,
and I have a love hate relationship with them.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah, well they're grab bags. They are.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Like you said, Ash, it's funny that they've taken this
long to legitimately just do a full on Halloween theme
because I've always considered them, you know, because they're horror movies,
and because they are anthologies, and because they all have
this sort of feeling of a variety. It feels like
the cinematic equivalent of getting a bag of candy on Halloween,
where it's like, you know, yeah, here's the kit Kat
and here's the twigs, and here's this. And as I

(12:54):
was saying to other friends of mine about the franchise,
I think one of the reasons I love it so
much is the fact that the fact that you are
going to get, like, you know, a weird off brand
candy now and again, and it's kind of like it's
not my favorite. The fact that it's next to some
of your favorite candies or presumably you know, it makes
it kind of taste that much better where it's like, oh,
I'm getting all of this at once instead of just this,

(13:15):
you know sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
I feel like, I really liked the first couple, and
then they started to get away from the magic that
made those first ones so special. I thought it started
to get a little bit too not found footagey, and
I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain, but
they did some of the stories started to move away
from the charm and the the like uniqueness of what

(13:41):
that first one was. I feel like it goes up
and down. I thought that the one they did, like
nineteen eighty four, which I believe nineteen eighty five, that
was my birth year. Oh yeah, well, the first the
nineteen I was very disappointed by the one, and then
they did the other one, and I liked that one
so much better. What was the one whatever, the one
that had the Scott Dereckson story.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
I think that's eighty five?

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Is it eighty nine? I don't know. I don't have
the list, but there was like a lot of that
one was really good.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
They did two in the nineties.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
They did ninety four and ninety nine, but they did
do eighty five, and actually the Derekson one, I think
is I.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Think that's eighty is it ninety nine? I remember I
liked whatever the second one was of the series. So
I think the ninety nine one was better than the
ninety four.

Speaker 3 (14:30):
Gosh which one.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
I think it's eighty five?

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Is it eighty five?

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Okay, because I feel like that one was a little darker,
a little grimier, a little weirder. Yeah, but I think
did I thought Viral was their weakest.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Okay, it didn't care for that one famously had some
issues behind the scenes because they had originally I think
at least one more segment planned, and even I believe
it was shot and finished. But when they the producers
viewed it, they I don't know, they didn't think it
fit or something like that.

Speaker 3 (15:00):
They thought it wasn't the right.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Format or I don't know, uh, and they deleted it,
and so it lead it left it feeling kind of
incomplete and herky jerky in terms of the pace, because
these films, you know, as much as they don't really
have a you know, a standard narrative that follows from
film to film, it's just more of a vibe, you know. Yeah,
And so they really are like, you don't need to
watch these in order. I mean, the films maybe, but

(15:22):
obviously the in terms of the individual installments, you don't
need to start, you know, from the beginning all the
way go all the way through. But I do think
that you can see how there's sort of a through
each one. There's a sort of a vibe, you know,
sort of comes to fruition about a plan of like Okay,
we start with like a sort of mid level one,
then we get to over the crazy one, then we
get to maybe a depressing one, and then we just

(15:42):
end on a high you know sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
And so yeah, viral is that one that sort.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Of you know, it's heurkey jerky because it Yeah, there
was some problems behind it.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Seth They were trying to make it very modern.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
For the vibe, we're trying to update.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
It thing that we were living now, and I think
that that kind of takes away from So there's what
of these are seven now? Of feet Halloween the eighth
Oh wow?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, because Shutter ever since they took over the
series in twenty twenty one with ninety four, uh, they've
been pumping them out every year since. So twenty one,
twenty four, now twenty five, there's been.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
One every year.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
There were things I liked about the last one. Eighty
five was pretty cool. I thought that that that had
some really interesting stories. I'm not one for the alien stuff,
which is why it was so funny for our screen
Drafts visit, because I was.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Like, fuck, yeah, yeah, go see our screen Drafts episode
plug plug plug.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
O plug plug plug. I did like a lot of
the stories in that. I thought that some like the
one where the people were being abducted, and like that
orchard that was so cool.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was fun.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
This is I like the ones that look more realistic,
which is why I think I would gravitate toward the
first one, or like the Scott Derekson one.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
I the real all started by these mumblecore indie filmmakers,
some of whom have done indie horror, but some of
whom hadn't. Like at that point, Ty West I had
already made a House the Devil, but David David Buckner
done the Signal, But I think that Joe Swamberg that
was his first you know, holly horror thing Radio Silence.
Like I said, it was the kind of debut, so yeah,

(17:15):
it was kind of It was a more indie, scrappy
sort of thing. And then of course VHS two, bringing
in that international flavor would Safe Haven with Timochijanto and
Gareth Evans, you know, doing their segment, which is still
like maybe the highest point of the series so far.
And then you know Eduardo Sanchez coming back from Blair
Witch to like do his segment. Yeah, it felt like
a sort of more curated thing. And now that producer

(17:37):
Josh Goldblum has taken over for the Shutter tenure, he's
still trying to curate you know, kind of up and
comers mixed with veterans, you know, which I love. I
love that aspect of the series, and I think that yeah,
he's he's fixated on this sort of like thematic idea,
whereas the first three movies it's except Viral, which Viral
only really applied to the wrap around, it didn't really

(17:58):
apply to the segments, you know. So I think that
the first three movies more were about let's just sort
of mix up you know, filmmakers and sort of see
what we can get, whereas now Goldbloom has tried to
steer it towards like all of these will have the
same theme of they're set in nineteen ninety four, nineteen
eighty five, or their Halloween sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
Or alien yeah alliens, yeah, which is fine, and that's why,
like I was, I was excited to discuss one of
these with you because they're, like we said, there's so many,
but right around Halloween and having a Halloween one come out,
I had very high expectations, and I think this one
was I feel like this goes mid like mid for me,

(18:37):
right in the middle, because I really like the first
to the best. You know, the first one's great, the
second one is a lot more polished, but this one
was fun. I mean, we finally have one that fully
leans into the Halloween setting, giving the fans like a
holiday themed entry, which makes me wonder if we're going
to get a Christmas lie.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
I kind of feel like they have to be, like.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
They haven't announced anything, but I think that that's got
to be on their mind.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Now. Yeah, there's some of these like before we get
into them, like Kidprint is one of the darkest ones
that I've seen in the franchise, and it was my
favorite one of these because I'm a sicko. But there's
one that, like when they have a story that emotionally
resonates throughout the franchise, this one is one of like
if you pick, like if you were to categorize every

(19:21):
story from all of them. I feel like that entry
is going to be really high because it was really good.
There's high creativity over the segments, and I really liked
how they you know, I'm a sucker for practical. There
was a lot of practical effects in this that really
really work for me. The visual style and the horror concepts.

(19:42):
We're very ambitious, though. I do feel like Kuchiko was
a little stolen, But we'll get into there when we
get into it. But yeah, I like, I'm not a
huge anthology fan, Okay, I like t Treat. I know
I will like the only ones we've ever talked about
a trick or Treat. I just feel like I get
a little like, oh, this is a little boring. I

(20:04):
don't get it. But this one. I really liked what
they did with this one.

Speaker 3 (20:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
And I've been talking to other friends of mine too
about this series and how you kind of mentioned trick
or Treat. This series, for whatever reason, hasn't really ever
done its pulp fiction. I mean, they've really kind of
hammered down on the idea that every individual filmmaker or filmmakers,
if they're working together, get to do kind of their
own thing, and now ever since Goldblum took over with Shutter,

(20:30):
it's been okay, do your own thing, but just have
it be set in nineteen eighty five or whatever. And
so I think that, yeah, I don't know if it's
something they want to do, but it would be cool
to see them attempt a pulp fiction or trick or
treat type thing where it's like they're all connected every segment,
even if we're interchanging directors or not.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
Well, I feel like they tried to do that with
this one, and it didn't exactly work. Like they tried
to have the drink going through the entire.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Well that's yeah. So they have this thing called a
wrap around, which usually is something that you're returning to
after every segment.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
You know. It's kind of how some anthology movies like to.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
But it only very loosely connects everything. Guess what I
felt like actually kind of had tonal whiplash, which isn't
a bad thing, but like it went up and down,
like you go from child abduction horror to candy monsters.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, oh yeah, And I think that that's what all
of these films have too, because of the variety aspect
where it is the sort of movie where like you're
kind of hinting at it's like it's a you know,
wait and see where It's like, if you're not liking
what you're seeing right now, wait twenty minutes and then
you know, you might see something you really like, you know,
or you might not.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
But and this one was long. This one was longer
than a lot of the other ones.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Yeah, they're getting longer because I think more people are
wanting to jump into the sandbox and play.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
You know, which is cool. I like seeing all the
different directors do stuff. And as we go through the
We're going to talk about each story individually, and I'm
counting on you to tell me who these people like
directors are and what they did, because that's that's just
what we have going on here. So let's start with
the overall structure in the frame narrative, which is Diet
Phantasma and that is written and directed by Brian M. Ferguson.

(22:06):
Where do I know him from?

Speaker 3 (22:07):
Uh, not too much.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
He's he's really been kind of twiddling away in the
video music video world, which you know, obviously ever since
the sort of not death but diminishment of MTV. Yeah,
it's still on the air, but come on, you know not,
it's not the cultural juggernaut that he used to be.
So music videos are kind of catch as catch can.

(22:31):
If it's a huge, you know, star like Sabrina Carpenter,
Taylor Swift, you'll probably hear of it, but if it's not,
you might not hear of it. So yeah, he's been
working on music videos for people like Lady Tron Boy
Harsher if you know that that group, and Fish Nark, which.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Is a group that I don't even know.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
They nark on fishes.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
They nark on fishes apparently, And so yeah, he's been
doing Alice Glass as another artist he's worked with a
couple of times, and Garbage, which is an artist we
all know Garbage, but one of their more recent singles
which you know, maybe you haven't heard. He's done a
couple episodes of a show called Bloody Bites, which I
don't know what that is. And yeah, so basically he's
kind of been in the shorts rule. He's yet to

(23:10):
make a feature, and I think that based on the
strength of Diet Phantasma, I kind of hope he does
make a feature because I really like.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
This one I did too, so Die Fantasma. This functions
as the wrap around story intercut between the other segment
and the basic premise. Is a corporation often called the
Octagon Corporation, is developing a new diet soda called Diet Phantasma,
which contains an extract of Poultrigcheist essence. And last, I
like to say to people, even with my job, people

(23:37):
will call in and fight with us, and I'm like, oh,
did you read your contract? Because you can't cancel after
this amount of time without paying a certain amount. But
you can't do this, and this is like, I do
like the underlying tone of a lot of these segments,
which is very like things that are happening now and
like kind of like a PSA. But this one is like,

(23:59):
what do you mean Poultucisse essence?

Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, you know, I do like the you know, so
many of these segments in the VHS films get away
with what they get away with because they're allowed to
be vague because they only have so much time and
they obviously only have so much budget. And I think
that what's effective for me as a viewer is when
they bring those ambiguities in vagueness to a boil and
I think this is a really good one to do

(24:23):
that with, because, yeah, we don't know where they're getting
this essence from. There's kind of maybe like an ectoplasmy
sort of scene that they have.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
I guess, I guess, I.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
Guess where you get all these ghosts from.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
But like it becomes right, it becomes pretty clear obviously
as you watch these each part of the segment that
the joke or the game is like, each time everybody
drinks a bit of this, something else bizarre and awful
happens to them.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Oh it's awful, So the test subts are made to
drink it, and their bodies suffer from grotesque supernatural side
effects like face deformation, vomiting, ectoplasm possession, and literally exploding,
and like the corpse keeps trying to change it and
per affect the formula so it doesn't kill people, but
instead they want them to be The end goal of

(25:06):
this is for them to be controlled and possessed. And
I'm like, to what end?

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Yeah, yeah, I guess it's just a yeah, it's again
it's a vague thing, but it's definitely like a uh,
you know, evil corporations having no scruples and no interest
in the consumer other than buyer product.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
You know sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (25:22):
Yeah, we were laughing that his assistant looked like Barb
from Supernatural.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
Oh totally yeah, Oh not sorry.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
So as we move on throughout the interludes, the show's
successive subjects thirty seven, forty, and forty one undergo increasingly
horrific transformations and death. But then there's one boy that
it does seem to work on who doesn't die, but
he does become possessed, and that's where the doctor rothschild
is trying to do. So like, great job, I.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
Guess, Yeah, you did it, I guess.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
But then we get to like the mid post credit,
and then there's you know, we have the kids that works,
and then the soda starts being commercialized, and the child,
after drinking it says very creepily like, it's scary, how
good it is? Whether eyes turn white? And I love, like,
I get the consumerism thing that they're trying to show
us here.

Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, it's not layered, it's not deep, but no, it's
just a fun sort of you know again, I think
that the appeal of this as its own short is
just you know, what crazy thing you're going to see.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Next to you?

Speaker 1 (26:25):
Know, but also like the it connects loosely to the
rest of the stories, like the idea of ingestion or
recording forbidding things, spirits, et cetera. But it also remains
somewhat you know, tangeal with the lyrics of the linking
because at one point they're not you know, they're not
reading the fine print about the poltergeist and this and that.
But also they aren't knowing what the record's going to

(26:46):
do in a future story that we're going to talk about,
and there's all these signs that this is not right,
and like, like we said, it is very obvious satire
on consumerism. So that's why I really liked it because
it was it was just crazy.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, no, it's fun. It's the kind of thing that
you want from these kind of movies. But also the
wrap around where it's just you know, you're not sure
what you're going to see next, but it's.

Speaker 1 (27:07):
People were really fucking exploding, Like it was so funny
to watch all the different like there's like hell razor
things coming out of the cans and sticking in people's faces.
It was wild.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
It's wild. I love it.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
Well.

Speaker 1 (27:20):
The guy I thought that it was the guy from
District nine at first, but then I was very wrong,
but he kind of had that look.

Speaker 3 (27:26):
He does look a little similar. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
Yeah, so story one technically is Kuchi Kuchi Ku, and
that is by Anna's Lakovic.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
Uh yeah, how do you pronounce it? Z Lokovic?

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I would guess what do I know her from?

Speaker 3 (27:38):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (27:39):
Again, she's mostly done shorts, but she did do a
feature in twenty twenty three called Appendage, which I didn't see,
but I guess it was for Hulu and it was
about a fashion designer's life spiraling as her darkest inner
thoughts manifest into something gruesome that won't stop growing. Okay,
nice tagline. I didn't hear anybody talking about this one.

(28:01):
I guess obviously Goldlin must have watched it because he
hired her for this. And yeah, it was a Hulu short,
or rather expanded feature version of a Hulu short. So yeah,
if anybody has got Hulu checked that out if you
like Cucikuciku. But yeah, so she's kind of on her way.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Kuchikucuku had very strong Barbarian yes influences for me, which
took a I guess it didn't take away from the story,
but I was like, oh, we've already I've already seen
something that was very much like this. So the basic
story is two high school girls, Lacey and Cayley, go
out trick or treating on Halloween. They run into a
trio of boys who warned them about an entity called

(28:41):
the Mommy, an urban legend said to snatch kids who
were too old to go trick or treating. The girls,
in part motivated by teen rebelliousness, start messing with other
trick or treaters, stealing candy, et cetera, and eventually they
face Mommy, a horrifying, monstrous maternal figure. The energy entity
pursues them throughout their obvious don't go in there, screaming

(29:03):
haunted house like that house. The second I saw that hand,
I'm like, well, you don't go in there.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
When they see the house is an the glowing inside
or something, Yeah, it's crazy, that's obviously wrong.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Yeah. So and the short ends amid carnage and chaos.
There's a lot of milk in this, so be pared,
be prepared to be grossed out. And like I said,
reminds me of a barbarian. And yeah, it's all because
they wanted to act like babies and now they get
to be mother's baby forever was kind of what I
got from this.

Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's funny because I think this is one of two
segments in this movie and this anthology alone about if
you're an adult you should stop trick or treating.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yes, but I also like, I don't agree with that.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Yeah, No, it's funny. Do you see a trick or treat?

Speaker 1 (29:45):
No, I don't trick or treat, but if somebody put
the effort in, Like I remember people walking around when
I was trick or treating with just like not in
costume and going to people's houses and like trick or
treat the older kids asking for candy with no costume.
Fuck right off. If you come up to my house
dressed in full costume, I don't care what age you are.

(30:07):
I will give you candy. That is the spirit of Halloween.
There's no age on that, but there's effort.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
It's funny. I agree with both points of view. I
think that if I were giving out candy, and like
you just said, if anybody of any age comes up
and they put an effort in, of course you're gonna
get candy. At the same time, I would feel funny
if my friends were like, hey, let's all dress up
and go trick and treating and be like why should
we just go to a party instead sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
You know, well, at our age, yes, but when you're
like seventeen.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
Oh yeah, no, when you say yeah, of course, yeah,
you're still.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Because you're too old to trick or treat. But you're
too old. You're too old to trick or treat, but
you're too young to go out, there's this weird like
what are we doing?

Speaker 3 (30:42):
I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Oh, you're right, No,
you're right.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
And I think that as we talk on the show
a lot about right, I talk a lot about transgression,
I think that it is a very slight transgression. It's
not as as obvious as like, you know, don't have sex,
you know, in Jason's Woods sort of thing. It's it's
more of a it's kind of almost literally the example
I'd like to use, which is don't go in the
house sort of thing. But there is a curiosity aspect,

(31:06):
and there is almost an innocent aspect to it, where
it's like, what could happen?

Speaker 3 (31:09):
You know?

Speaker 1 (31:10):
Well, I loved how much the one chick thought that
all of this was hilarious because that's what the normal
person would think. You wouldn't think that there was really
weird shit going on. You would think, oh, these people
put a lot of effort into the red.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
I mean, I remember in my neighborhood back in Michigan
growing up, there was people. There would be people in
the neighborhood or around it two who did like full
on like they would use like their yard to make
a maze, you know, kind of similar to the last segment,
which we'll get to. And then there were people that like,
you know, there was a dude who dressed up in
a full gut up kind of looked like a scarecrow,

(31:45):
he kind of type guy, and he was holding a
chainsaw with the chain taken off, but he would just
look like in a mannequin. He made himself look like
a mannequin sitting on the porch and you would go
up and you would take the candy and he wouldn't move,
nothing would happen. But as soon as you started to
leave the porch, you would turn on the chainsaw and
like that's awesome. I mean, it's it messed me up,

(32:05):
but in a great way, so in like a.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
Fun way, I do lay. Everywhere I've lived, we always
buy so much candy for Halloween, but nobody trick or
treats because we're we're here, We're like in the woods,
so there are no kids. But even when I was
in this city, we were in a place that kids
didn't really.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
Yes, in that area, yeah, they don't come around to
apartment now.

Speaker 1 (32:27):
It's not like I grew up in the sub like
out when when I left West West Philadelphia, I guess
it was thirteen, so I got to have like prime
trigger treating and like the urbs of Delco and yeah,
like that would we would stay out all night and
it was it was like what people talk about when
you talk about, you know, Halloween back in the nineties

(32:48):
and how fun it was. It's definitely not like that
is now because now people do trunk treat and well, honestly,
I also feel like people are scared to send their
kids out. Now people are psychos, But like they were
psychos back then, there were and we were fine, yeah,
get you little powder puffs out there.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
Good gosh, kick them out the door.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
So yeah, no, I think this segment is, uh, it's
fun and it's sort of that you know, first person
found footage experiential kind of thing of like, you know,
even the geography of the house, it has that feeling
of like is this all in the same house or
I mean, is there something we are going on here?

Speaker 1 (33:20):
You know, they did a good job with the effects
of the mother. She was creepy. I felt scared for everybody,
But I also see this is like I think I'm
going to do great in harm with you, which probably
would happened. I feel like if there was two of us,
I could have taken that bitch down.

Speaker 3 (33:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, I guess that's where the whole like I don't know,
poisoned or hypnotic milk.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Comes in or something. I think.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Yeah, and that's how it ended. These two girls just
get to be this lady's baby.

Speaker 3 (33:51):
Yeah. Well, at least we're taken.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Care of, you know, right, Yeah, I don't have to
pay rent.

Speaker 3 (33:55):
Or Shelter is a hard thing to come by these days.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Probably it probably stinks in there, doesn't smell good. Okay,
So off to segment two, which you so perfectly said
in our intro. If you would like to say the
title again.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Uh, it's super seeking from Oh no.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it. Okay, So
this is by Paco Palaza and Alberto Mariini. What do
I know them from?

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Paco Plaza is one of the gurus of the rec franchise.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
Oh, I love REC I like Reck one and two.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
REC one two, and he did Genesis I think Solo, uh,
and then the other guy did rec Apocalypse.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
I can't remember his name.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
My favorite one was on the Ship with the Bride.
That one was the Ship I think that's Rec two.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
No, what is that one?

Speaker 1 (34:45):
First one?

Speaker 2 (34:45):
The one on the with the Bride is Reck three,
and the one on the ship is Reck four. You
might be putting together a couple of them.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Oh, these movies kind of one together.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
But yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:53):
He also did a couple uh movies that were released
on a pleave Netflix, like Veronica and it's sort of
a side sequel.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
I liked Veronica.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't see its side sequel. I think
it's Sister Death is the side sequel or something.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
I didn't see that either, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
But I did see Veronica and yeah. So he's been
directing features since you know, the mid two thousands.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Nice. So, yeah, it's kind of funny that someone from
the same kind of franchise is now on this franchise
because Wreck is very similar to this.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
Of course, you know, they do a good job of
trying to seek out people that have made you know,
sort of you know, no well known found footage movies before.
That's why Sanchez was obviously part of the HS two,
you know, yep, Like, so, yeah, what's this one about?

Speaker 1 (35:39):
Oh? So, Enric is the survivor of a gruesome massacre
at a party. Investigators bring him back to the original
crime scene, a psychics house to reconstruct the events. We
jump back and forth between the night things happened and Vicki,
the party host, and the police at the house with Enric.
During the re enactment, things to go off the rails.
They find a strange phone that rings, though not connected

(36:02):
to anything, and a strange Latin inscription. As Bill just said,
that means as above so below, and Rick convulses, vomits eyeballs,
and in a surreal climax, pulls others' eyeballs out, gravity
devies itself, and the supernatural shatters the boundaries between above
and below. He kills everyone, then the cops bring him back.

(36:24):
I love this one because I always have that thought,
like what happens to the soul survivor of the mass murder,
of the demons, the ghosts, that this, that that that
everything that happens at these horrible events that you can't
explain if it's supernatural, like the lines between good and
evil and living dead and all this stuff, and then
being like it was a demon who killed everybody, They're

(36:46):
not going to believe you. So I loved this story
of bringing this person back and being like, walk me
through it, show me exactly what happened, and then everybody
gets killed.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
I think this is a really impressive segment from a
te level too, because so many and structure, because so
many of these segments in the VHS series tend to
be a similar structure, which is somebody is recording on
a VHS tape there encounter their night or you know,
they're doing kind of a paranoral activity thing where they're
doing like a surveillance type deal. There's sort of a

(37:19):
rhythm that you're kind of come to expect, and occasionally
they'll mix up, you know, that rhythm by you know,
the VHS series just loves to do this sort of
like you know, taping over something else sort of thing.
So like occasionally, like the old video will come through
in the middle of a crazy segment where or crazy
moment where like you'll see like a flashback to somebody's
birthday party you know that they used to have on
this tape. But then it continues, you know, with the

(37:41):
new footage after you know, the old footage kind of
breaks through, and it's sort of analog glitch way. And
I think what Paco does here with this segment is
he structures a flashback in a way that feels natural
and sort of plot driven, which is, you know, we
have the police investigating this you know, incident, and so
we see the flashback footage as the police would in

(38:04):
the sense of like they're playing you know, that footage
and we get to see it. So there's like a
natural aspect to the flashback of like, you know, why
we're seeing it now instead of you know, up front.
And there's the fact that of course the police would
be recording, you know, the uh taking the victim back
to the scene of the crime because they want to
document everything sort of thing. So yeah, I love that

(38:25):
he was able to work that very similar tude in
of the whole found footage aspect. Very naturally, and I
think that shows in his you know, he came from
the rec films.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
He knows how to do this genre. And this this
stormat really really well.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
The POV of the cops being attacked and the kids
being attacked was really cool, Like you get to see
what the the you you know, the cops are being
lifted up and down and slammed all around. And I
do think that this one had a top tier kill
at the end. It was really good, really really good. Listen,
soliating demons are the best. What can I say? But

(38:59):
I again, like you don't usually get to see the
aftermath of a supernatural massacre. You always think like, oh,
what did this person say? What did that person say? Like,
let's talk about my favorite Halloween, maybe to watch Night
of the Demons. What did that chick go home? And
ever all your friends have been killed? You say, yeah, yeah,

(39:20):
what do you say? And so for the cops to
be like, okay, let's let's go back and let's redo
everything that you did that night and see if it's
real or not. And then of course it is and
they all get what they get. And I thought that
this one was really interesting. I didn't they it wasn't
my favorite of all of them, but I thought that
the story touched on something that I bring up in

(39:42):
my head all the time and that I haven't seen explored,
and so I really appreciated that.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:47):
Yeah, it's a little bit more of the intellectual or
thematic exercise than is emotional because you don't really get
to know these characters that well at all. And you know,
that's kind of part for the course for a lot
of mynthology segments too, is that you don't only.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Have that much time with him.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
But I think that it's remarkable how much he's able
to do in the short space of time and how
many you know, kind of cool concepts he's able to do,
and the whole as above so below aspect to it,
you know, it feels like it has a payoff, which
I don't I haven't felt like i've seen before.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
You know, I was hoping that that was the director
of that movie and that's who they were. Oh, because
I love that movie if you ever were.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Yeah, the found footage movie not related called as below.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
One of my favorite found footage movies of all time.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
You should save that for recommendation.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
I feel like I've done it before you have Okay,
I definitely do, all right, but we should cover that
at some point because I love that one. It's great.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
It's great, also great.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Okay, So moving on to our third story, fun Size
by Casper Kelly. What do I know Casper Kelly from.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
So, Casper's been working in sort of the animation space
for the beginning of his career in the late nineties,
and he was writing for you know, series like cat
Dog and the Scooby Doo Project, which was one of
his first sort of meta I how do I put it,
like meta fictional or sort of pop cultuy riff things,

(41:10):
where the Scooby Doo Project was taking the characters from
Scooby Doo and putting them in the Blair Witch Project,
like I love that, and it came out in ninety nine,
so it was you know, contemporary with the original movie.

Speaker 3 (41:22):
So yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
He continued to write for a bunch of other cartoon
shows and do sort of like you know, comedy shorts
sort of things. He did episode a couple episodes of
Harvey Birdman Atturning a Law so he was with the
sort of adult cartoon network group, and also worked on
Aquatine Hunger for us and you know, things like that.
So that's how he was able to get one of
his sort of comedy horror shorts made for Adell's Swim,

(41:47):
which was the infamous Too Many Cooks from twenty fourteen.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
If you've seen that ash have you?

Speaker 1 (41:51):
I think I have.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:53):
It was the fake eighties sitcom intro that never ended,
and then a serial killer just kind of broke into
the middle it and broke reality and chased the actors
around and all this stuff and like really broke and
then the sort of mascot puppet character had to reset
reality it s get things back on track. And then
the joke was that that was actually the actual intro

(42:14):
to the show, which plays before every episode, but because
the intro so long, the episode's like two seconds long,
so it's a.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Really really goofy short.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
And then he went on to make a couple others
like that, such as Final Deployment for Queen Battle Rock Through,
which is a video game Twitch streaming kind of riff.
He also made the Cheddar Goblin commercial from Mandy.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
Oh Yeah, okay, so I know.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
That, yeah, and then his Live that I consider his
magnum opus so far to be the adult swim mule
Log movies, which if you haven't seen, they are again
fake out movies where it starts with the shot of
a yule log and you hear these characters in the
background kind of walking around in the space. You don't
know where the space is, you don't know who these
people are yet. But the first movie is like if

(43:04):
you had like a backwoods or you know, a rural
of Cannibal, you know, serial killer family movie meets a
possessed evil log. Okay, and then the second movie is
the survivor of that first movie getting trapped in a
Hallmark Christmas movie where the evil log chases her into the.

Speaker 3 (43:25):
Hallmark Christmas movie.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
I feel like, just kill me.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
It's just it's so cool. I really recommend those highly.
If you're into Christmas horror. Maybe you we'll cover those
at some point because they're just so fun.

Speaker 1 (43:34):
It's animated.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
No, these are live action.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
I thought you said adults swim.

Speaker 2 (43:38):
Okay, yeah, no, adult swim, they'll do. I think that
Too Many Cooks was part of their infomercial series, which
is kind of an informal shorts series, but most of
those tend to be live action.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
Nice Okay, Yeah, well we have Christmas coming up, so
I would love to do that. Okay, so fun Size
is for adults. Lauren, Austin, Josh, and Haley, disappointed by
a party without candy, go trigger treating and they find
a bowl of weird candies with a sign take one.
Only we all know that Bill and Ash's tear theater,
we know about the rules of Halloween. One of them, Austin,

(44:12):
eats more than one candy and is pulled into the bowl,
and the rest are stuck into a warped candy factory
dimension in that nightmarish realm that being fun Size turns
bodies and parts into candy. Austin is dismembered, Haley is
filled with eminems, and attempts by Lauren and Josh to
escape fail. Eventually they confront fun Size in a horrifying finale.

(44:34):
And this one was pretty fun. It felt very close
to what I remembered the original VHS movies being and
had going for them.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, totally. Like I said, I love the
Ulog movies so much that this one was a little
bit of a let down for me in the sense
that I really wanted to get crazy, But I do
feel like it was still fun like. It wasn't it
was fun, It wasn't the best. It wasn't let down
in terms of like this sucked. It was let down
in terms of, oh, it wasn't as great as I
was hoping, but it's still fun.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
Yeah, mister fen Size is a dick. He was really
fun And like I said, we love a Halloween. Halloween
rule and the whole like take one when people aren't
home and they leave that. So many kids that you
know that I know have been a part of have
I've probably done it too, taken the candy and been
real dicks about it. So, mister fun Size, is what
you get when you do that. I thought the conveyor

(45:20):
belt thing was a little lame. The whole like will
you marry me before I gets shredded? Like it's not
very romantic. I'd say yes, I'm like, oh, okay, this
one I've thought had some interesting themes, like the punishment
for breaking the rules and living in like kind of

(45:40):
a denial kind of thing was really interesting. And at
the end Lauren almost survives until fun Size turns her
head into a human pinata, which was really fucking awesome,
and that griss little kid finds her Finger and the Candies. Yeah,
I liked it. I thought that, like I liked it.
This one wasn't the strongest, but it was fun. And
mister fund Size, like, I don't know, maybe we have

(46:02):
a new icon.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
We could we could he can team up with Michael
Doherty Sam from Trick or Treat. You know, they can
sort of hang out together, hang out together and mess
with people that screw on Halloween, screw up, but maybe also.

Speaker 1 (46:14):
Screw and screw up. That's what Halloween's all about.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
That's what Hallowen's about.

Speaker 2 (46:18):
Yeah, I like that it continues, you know, that vibe
of Trick or Treat even though it's you know, different
filmmakers where it's that fine kind of thing of like,
you know, Halloween has its rules and you really don't
want to mess with them, and if you do, you're
gonna get your ass handed to you or turn it.

Speaker 1 (46:31):
To Keady was I was saying on I guess I
can't remember. I don't know which. I'm on so many
shows now, but I always carve a pumpkin on or
before Halloween. Sometimes it'll be on Halloween, but I never
in my life have not done it because I feel
like I have to you know, and I'm I don't

(46:51):
know what will happen if I don't. Probably nothing, but
I'm also not willing to find out. So that's always
been something for me. It's like I have to do
it either before or on and I have never let
a year go by where I haven't done it, and
I don't want to know what happens if I don't.

Speaker 3 (47:04):
That's smart.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
Yeah, whatever tradition you have, and everybody has different ones,
you know, it's probably a good thing to keep them
if you can.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Because last few years was so awesome because we were
carving on Halloween and that's when we were like, let's
watch the substance. It took me two and a half
hours to cut like the entire length of the movie
to carve the most simple pumpkin because I was like,
cock cut, cock cut.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Just watch it.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
I was like, this is crazy. I could not take
my eyes off the screen enough time to cut out
the pumpkins. So it was it was a very interesting.
It was a fun experience, but like I was on
the floor for that entire movie with a pumpkin between
my knees, like, WHOA, I did not know that that's
what this movie was about. And I love it. So
that was our Halloween last year.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Oh that's so fun. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
We're we're carving pumpkins on my birthday this year, and
I'm gonna subject to everybody to night at the Demons
while we do it.

Speaker 2 (47:56):
Okay, shoot, I mean you're like a steps away from
doing a live pumpkin carving on Twitch, right Oh sure?

Speaker 3 (48:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
Oh, I just set a camera up in the back
of the dog, like the cat cam.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Yeah, like the cat cam. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
I'm not trying to get canceled.

Speaker 3 (48:10):
No, that's fair.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Who knows what I'll say the pumpkin carving.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
Just bring the pumpkin carving gets out of control, it
just gets wild.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Pumpkin carving. Yeah, put a knife in your hand and
don't look out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Okay, so we are onto story four. I think so
this was my favorite.

Speaker 3 (48:27):
Okay, let's talk about it.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Oh, kid Print by Alex Ross Perry. Where do I
know Alex Ross Perry from?

Speaker 3 (48:34):
I don't know if you know his stuff.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
He's been in the indie filmmaking world for the longest time,
since at least the late two thousands. He's directed movies
like Queen of Earth with Elizabeth Moss also her smell
also Elizabeth Moss. Queen of Earth was about did you
see that one?

Speaker 1 (48:53):
No?

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Okay, Queen of Earth was about like Elizabeth Moss playing
like a person who's probably insane sort of thing, whereas
her smell she's like the leader.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Of a rock something so different for her different, but.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Her smell she's like the leader of a rock band
who's like a mess, but like because of you know,
rock band stuff, like you know, booze drug sort of thing.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
Dan Stevens was also in her smell as well.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
I love Dance, Yeah, yeah, I three. I really liked
that movie. I thought it was great. He also was
directed a couple of music videos, one for Ghost Jesus
he Knows Me, which is the cover of the Genesis song,
one for Maya Hawk, one for Kim Gordon.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Excuse me, I know.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
She's all right in soccer Mommy. So he's kind of
like he's definitely been in the sort of indie scene.
His latest movie, feature Wise, was the pseudo documentary but
pseudo biopic called Pavements, about the indie rock band from
the nineties Interesting, which had people like Joe Keery and
uh Jason Schwartzman yeah, Oh, I like Sportsman.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
So anyway, his stuff tends to be very considered, very
like grounded, and obviously as kid Print is, you know,
demonstrates it can get it can get dark.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Yeah okay, so uh not even when a teacher, when
a teenager disappears during a police back trick or treat event, Tim,
the kid Print stores owner, investigates, he uncovers that an employee,
Bruce Diittman, is using the video system to locate and
abduct children then film himself torturing and killing them.

Speaker 3 (50:35):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
This one was great and it's probably my favorite. It
was so dark, it was very violent and not It's
not going to be easy for a lot of people
to watch, and I accept that, but I loved it.
I thought it was great, and I thought that they
slayed with their practical effects. It was very realistic and
again like, there's no monsters, there's no grules, It's just
a man who looks like your buddy, your everyday friend,

(50:58):
the what's up, you know, what's up guy at the
grocery store.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Other than Tye West's segment for the first VHS called
Second Honeymoon, I think this is the only other segment
in the entire series that doesn't have any sort of
supernatural aspect to it. It doesn't have a demon or
a ghost or a curse or whatever. And it's funny
because so many of the other segments do have those

(51:22):
supernatural elements. We've really kind of come to expect a
certain level of complacency where or distancing, you know, where
it's like, yeah, it's VHS. They're very fun like some
are dark and some are crazy, and some are funny,
sometimes all at once, but you know you're always gonna
have a good time at the end sort of thing.
This one when I was first watching it, On my
first viewing of this movie, my jaw was on the floor.

(51:44):
I was like, I cannot believe that they're going here.
I can't believe they're doing this. I can't believe that
there's no mitigating circumstance of like, oh, it's actually just
all a dream or oh it's funny because it's a
you know, goblin who's having this or whatever. It's just
fucked up. It's like, apparently I didn't know this, ash
maybe you did. Apparently the kid print was a real thing.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
That's the kicker, right, Yeah, and I worked at Blockbuster,
but I don't remember this. So the kicker is the
whole point of kid print or to document children for
their safety, especially like around Halloween and stuff like that,
and I I'd never heard of it. They didn't do
that in my town. But it was like an updated
video for IDs and photos of their children. So if

(52:25):
they go missing, it'll be really useful to put into
the news, I guess.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
And also I guess internal use for cops where it's
like you can see what they sound like and what.

Speaker 3 (52:34):
They like or whatever, you know.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah, but yeah, no, I never knew anybody that did
this or heard of anybody doing it, so maybe they
didn't do it in our town either.

Speaker 1 (52:42):
But did they say what year it was? It sounds
like a real early nineties thing to do.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
I think they actually did give a date in the
actual yeah ninety two.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Okay, that's like glamour shots that was like things like
that were really popular. And I mean, there are some
things I didn't love about how the events went. But like,
so Tim, he owns the kid print store, and he's like,
I'm gonna figure this out, and so he goes back
to his own store and before he can stop Bruce,

(53:13):
who is his employee after he sees all the things,
like Tim gets taken out like a bitch. I'm sorry,
but like, come on, Tim, Bruce takes his ass out
and locks him in the room with these two kids
that Bruce has been tormenting and torturing, and they assumed
that it was Tim who took them captive, which is
interesting because Bruce is black and Tim is white. And
then the kids then brutally attack and kill Tim, and

(53:36):
sad the kicker is Bruce gets away with it all,
which I love framing Tim as the murderer and said
he'll take over kid print business to keep the good
work going. And you get the idea. You get the
idea that like maybe he was also abused himself, but
instead of working on it and not being a killer,
he indulges in it, which is like I was talking

(53:56):
about the Ed Gaines story today and about mental illness
and schizophrenic and things that people don't deal with. Instead
of dealing with the fact that you might be a psychopath,
you are indulging in it. And that's real life horror.
It was. It almost kind of reminds me of Sam Little,
the serial killer, because it is not often that we
hear about black serial killers. It's not a thing, it's

(54:17):
that that is a white man's game.

Speaker 3 (54:19):
Yeah, yeah, you know totally.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
So I thought it was very smart to go with
that for this story because it just made it that
much more fucked up and jarring and believable that they
would get away with it.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Yeah. No, every aspect of this short of this segment
is generated to feel as upsetting as possible, even the
fact that, like there's a moment where Tim takes his
kids to like a Halloween gathering that the town set
up in terms of like, yeah, it was like a
trunk treat because they want all the kids in one
plaze so they can watch them and everything.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Well there had already been an abduction. Yea, kids are
being still like stolen.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
And even the fact that like they're having this sort
of holiday event in the midst of what is clearly
like a crisis or whatever. It just gives me, you know,
pandemic vibes, even though we're not talking about pandemic, but
like it's still that's interesting, you know, feeling of like
there's a tragedy just outside the purview of you know,
what's happening here. We're trying to pretend like everything's still happy.
We could give these kids a fun time, but like,

(55:15):
you know, it's not. And the fact that Tim is
continually you know, suspected, you know, during the whole segment
of like you know, other people being like, oh, that
guy's kind of weird or whatever, and you know, it's
definitely not. I think that Perry's yeah, definitely leading you
a little bit in the wrong direction of like you know,
maybe the persons who's filming all this is is the
evil one and uh yeah, like the break ins or

(55:40):
you know, like glitches of like seeing some of the
kid videos that are you know, the wrong videos.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Like this is why I was saying, if you're not
some people might have a really hard time at this
because we see kids getting de skinned, degloved. There's a
lot of skin peeling and a lot of screaming children,
which may make you and Ash me smile.

Speaker 3 (56:00):
You and I Ash.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
You and I Ash are famously childless and probably not
going to change, and so we have a different relationship
to Then there's people, there's friends of mine who have
kids who you know, swear off any movie where kids
are in peril, like you know, oh wow, yeah, sort
of thing.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
Well, I see it as a PSA. I mean, watch
out where your kids? Where are your kids at? Maybe
you should make sure that you have a you know,
not a mother, but like where are your kids at?
I love a practical effect, though, and I feel like
this this one really leaned heavily into practical and just
brewte that they actor just laughing and smiling while he
was peeling the skin off these kids. I was like,

(56:41):
this is awesome and also of the way of like,
I'm a fan of horror and this is really crazy
and I couldn't imagine, you know, this was so much
like I remember I watched all twenty five years Supernatural.
There was one episode I believe in season one where
they went up against like a serial killer family, and

(57:01):
it stands out in my mind as one of the
best episodes because there is nothing scarier than what we
as man do to each other.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
And that was yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
Where Scully was up against that serial killer, it was
just like, he's just a serial killer.

Speaker 3 (57:15):
No supernatural element.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Well, and then they did kind of tie a little
supernatural element into this because there was a little girl, Olivia,
who was one of the missing girls, whose eyes were
all solid white and that talked back to our diet
phantasma kind of thing, and I feel like that's the
first time that started to like, oh, they're like, you know,
where we can fit this in, Like put a little
girl with white eyes on there, you know.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
There's also a conceit that I kind of think goes
back to one of the earlier vhs is maybe it
was viral, or maybe it was ninety four where I
think at one point, oh, there are several points. Actually
might have been ninety four and eighty five. The gimmick
was that every segment that we're seeing is on the
same tape. So that's why the wrap around keeps coming
back up. We'll see like, you know, interesting sort of thing. Yeah,

(58:02):
which everyone was like the one with the Gorgan that
started with the stop motion oh yeah, effects, Yeah, that
one was like all the same tape, you know sort
of thing.

Speaker 3 (58:10):
So I feel like it's a little bit of that
fleet it was in between.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
Okay, yeah that makes sense because yeah, it cuts to
that girl and she's like, die of fantasma. It's my favorite.
But yeah, this one, this is short, it's bleak, it's violent,
and it's one of the most disturbing entries I think
in the entire franchise, and I really liked it. Well done, Alex.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Alex knocked it out of the park, I think. I mean,
that's something to really come in to franchise like this
and say I'm doing this shit and you know, thank you,
like you stop it.

Speaker 1 (58:42):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
There's no stopping me because you're giving us, all the
filmmakers the freedom to do these things as we will.
And I think a lot of the filmmakers they get
hired for these, you know, they do also just want
to have fun and be like, yeah, to play in
the sandbox and get to do a fun Well, that.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Actor was having so much fun, which is why I
think I enjoyed it as much as I did. He
was Bruce was fantastic. I'm sorry, I don't know the
actor's name, but you slaid it.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
Uh, let's see if I have it here. I think
I have a cast list here. Carl William Garrison is
Bruce Titman.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Thank you, Carl.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
But yeah, you know what I'm saying in the sense
that like, yeah, Alex could have been you know, Okay,
I guess everybody's doing like a fun sort of comedic
you know segment. I guess mine should be funny too
and everything like that. No, he's just kind of going
for it.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
He went for it and it was kind of like
as sick as it is, it was kind of funny.
Oh yeah, he's having this like laughing joy. And at
the end he was like, I'm going to just keep
this thing going with this big so he was like,
Tim was a nightmare. He was a monster. I'm going
to keep this going for the people. I'm like, this
is sick and I love it.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
It's sick. I love it.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Okay, moving on to our last short, which I on
this was this was my like it's hard. The other
one was my favorite one because it was so dark.
This one felt so true to what they were trying
to do for the whole Halloween theme. Home Haunt was awesome.

(01:00:06):
It was the perfect one to end it with. I
loved it so much. So. This is by Micheline Pitt
Norman and rh Norman.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Yeah, Micheline Pitt and rh Norman, both of whom haven't
done any features yet.

Speaker 1 (01:00:19):
Married couple.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
I guess I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Because hers is her I see her name hyphenated as
Pitt Norman.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Okay, well maybe they are, you know IMDb, they're not.
She's not hyphenated, but I would guess that if she's
hyphenated somewhere, that must be true. Yeah, and they've only
worked together on a short previous this called Grummy in
twenty twenty one, which.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
I've not seen.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Maybe there, And I think rh has made a few
other short minus Micheline all in twenty seventeen apparently, and
I don't know where they've landed. So yeah, this is
kind of their debut really in a big way, and
I think it's a great debut, great debut.

Speaker 1 (01:00:58):
So the story is Keith, his wife Nancy, and teenage
son Zach run a suburban Halloween home haunt i e.
A haunted house attraction in their yard. Zach has grown
weary of the traditions. Keith discovers a mysterious recorded title
Halloween Horrors and a thrift shop at the do not
Enter section and plays it during the haunt. The moment

(01:01:20):
that the record needle drops record I'm So Philadelphia. The
moment that the record needle drops, the haunt comes alive. Decorations, animatronics,
monsters all manifest physically and violently. Patrons are slaughtered. The
exits are gone, the facade or the facade. The facade

(01:01:40):
of the house becomes monstrous, and a witch bursts out
and attacks all of the trigger treats. Zach and Nancy survive,
but the carnage extends outwards. They realize that the monsters
have followed them out into the real world and start
attacking kids on the street. Keith got what he wanted,
the infamy and the legacy of being Halloween Man, and
the short ends with the menacing last shot, reinforcing that

(01:02:02):
the haunted house itself has become a living, malevolent entity.
I fucking loved this one so much. Sorry, I slamm
another thing. Also Rich Baker, Rich Baker, Rick Rick Baker.
Oh yeah, I'm sorry. They called him Rich in the
movie The Night Switched it Up. I have my I'm
looking at my notes. I'm sorry. This one was so awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
Yeah, it's great.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
It's it's kind of what you would think of in
terms of let's do with HS Halloween, because so many
of these segments in the prior films tend to be uh,
you know, found footage, experiential things of oh gosh, there's
this supernatural craziness happening. Uh and you know, I think
that this the segment really calls back to you know,

(01:02:48):
stuff like Night of the Demon, stuff like the Midnight Hour,
which was my pick, you know all those years ago
for Halloween we did.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
There was some tangent together for our first episode.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
And yeah, that that that vibe of like it's how
Aoween nights, so anything could happen, and you know this
idea that like the stuff comes to life. There was
even like a Buffy episode right where their costumes made
them oh yeah of the characters or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
Yeah, so yeah, it's that vibe.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
And Halloween three.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
Halloween three.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Yeah, also, and I think this is really a great
one to end on. I will say that I didn't
quite lock into it until we got to the Haunt,
right because the sort of setup moments I was I
was feeling the length of the whole movie, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
And it's not the segment's fault. It's the fact that
it comes at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Really, you know, it's literally eight minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Yeah, it's not because Ken.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Fell asleep when we were watching this, and I remember
turning to him and go, oh my god, it's Rick
Baker and then I was like, oh, you're asleep, So
we watched it the other night and it was it's
very short. Yeah, that kid kind of reminds me of
the kid from Deadpool. Oh, just like like that dry,
like he's a little like just like I don't want
to do this sad and everybody gets that, like if

(01:03:56):
you're embarrassed, you want to like that thirteen year old
whose parents aren't being embarrassing and not doing the weird
thing on the street. And his little girlfriend's name was Ashley,
which I thought was so funny and she got her
whole jaw ripped off. But yeah, like you can understand
where the characters are coming from. I had a lot
of questions, like did Janet know that the cursed objects

(01:04:18):
were back behind? Like did she know what was going on?
The lady at the thrift store, like did she know
what she had because that was in a do not
enter room? When that guy was a total dick Yep, yep,
total dick Keith was a dick.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Keith idiot again transgression. You know you shouldn't do that,
but you did it anyway, And now you're going to
get your comeuppins.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
For our listeners who all probably know. But if anybody
doesn't know, Rick Baker as the grumpy neighbor who gets
killed by the ghost sheet Is. He did American Werewolf
in London. He assisted Dick Smith in the Exorcist. He
did a live he did the Thriller music video, He
did the Howling the Frighteners of the Ring. We could
go on and on and on, but he is a

(01:05:00):
legend of effects and makeups. And that's why I kind
of like this one because I thought this one had
did really good effects. The Witch was perfect. Yeah, she
was so great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Rick Baker has become famous in you know, the local
neighborhood where he lives. I don't know where in Los
Angeles he lives, but I guess whatever neighborhood it is.
He has become known every Halloween too, with his family
make up like a special maze attraction that people, Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:05:26):
That's so cool. Oh is that why they did this?
They did Yeah, oh that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
But it is having him as the character who's like,
this is bullshit and it's dub and I hate it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
You know, it's pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
He thinks he's mister Halloween.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, So he's making fun of himself
in that way.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
I love the witch. The witch like lures this little girl.
They kill everybody in this there's zombies. It's amazing. You
have to watch it to really understand. But there's this
witch who lures this little girl into the hut and
then puts her in the cauldron and is biting her
fingers off. When the family runs in toget her and
then just sizzles her. It's so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Yeah, I think this is another example of why I
know you said earlier in the show that you're not
a big anthology person. I think this is why I'm
an anthology person, specifically for this time of year. I
think that there is something so appealing to me personally
about horror anthologies in the fall or in October around

(01:06:24):
Halloween because of the way that they do act, like
this cinematic version of you know, a candy bag. And
not that I won't watch them any other time of
the year, of course I will, but I think that
they're especially fun right now just because it's that sort
of party atmosphere of like, you know, trying to do
as much as you can as you possibly can in
one month, which is crazy, you know, and these anthology

(01:06:47):
movies allow you to sort of feel like you're doing
that more, you know, where it's like I want to
watch a vampire movie.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
I want to watch a zombi movie.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
I want to watch a slasher, I want to watch
it all that stuff, you know, And these movies can
allow you to sort of feel like you have because
an effect you have, but you know, you don't have
to worry like, oh, I need six hours because to
watch all of these, you know sort of thing. So
it allows you to have that variety that you might want.

Speaker 3 (01:07:08):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
I like them too. I'm just very particular and picky
about them. I have a high standards where I feel
like I've seen a lot that aren't great, where even
in this franchise, sometimes they're just the like Viral didn't
stand up for me, some of the recks didn't stand
up for me. Tri or teat Trick or Treat was great,

(01:07:30):
and then they do a lot of them on Shutter
like sometimes well creep show. Creep Show is great. I
mean that's the that like that and uh with the
other one Tails from the Dark Side. Those ones it's
a little different. It's kind of like you know, the
Twilight Zone movie and things like that. That's the crum
de la creme, so I have a higher standard of

(01:07:52):
what I expect them to be. I like when they
tie in like Trick or Treat did, when it feels
like a full story, but they also don't have to,
and it's thing I just it just depends on if
you're getting too far away from what the original source
kind of thing was, which I feel like VHS, throughout
going back and forth through their different ones, did start

(01:08:13):
to get farther away, which is why I feel like
they did two different eighties ones because everyone was expecting
a lot out of eighty four I think, I think
or nineties or whatever. One. Yeah, it was the one
nineties one did not hit, but then they were like, oh,
let's do another one, and that one did hit a
little bit better. And that's why this one, like there's

(01:08:36):
a lot of this one was good. It's not my
favorite of the VHS's, but it's it's staunchly in the middle.
I think that's the right word.

Speaker 2 (01:08:43):
Yeah, it might be consistent, given how consistent I feel
it is and how much I love the vibes and
really appreciate every segment, it might be my top five,
it might be at the bottom of it, but it
might be my top five.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
I would say this is like my top three. I
really did like the Halloween aspect.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
Yeah, And that's the thing is, I love that they
finally went this way. And honestly, I know that they
have a whole mandate that every you know, uh, movie's
not going to have a different theme to it.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
But I think this is when they could absolutely revisit.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
You know, it's not like, oh, yeah, you could continue
to do again. I'd like to see Christmas.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
Yeah, And I think Christmas is an absolute natural next
thing to do. And uh, obviously there's different years you
could play around with. Still, if you really want to
do you could.

Speaker 1 (01:09:29):
Do a modern one. I would love to see what
VHS twenty twenty five looks like, because if there was
a time when people have their phones out all the
time for it to make sense for recordings, this would
be the timeframe to do something like that. And I
would love to see like a bunch of stupid kids
going into an old haunted place to see what's going
on in there, like and like like a Grave Encounters

(01:09:50):
kind of thing, because with the time, like with modern technology,
you could really do something special.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
Yeah, and they've definitely already in the in several you know,
several films before this as well as I think this
even they've pushed the limits of like is it actually
on VHS? Is it you know, around the same time
filming on I forgot, but I think I think they've
already pushed past that point. You know, they tried to
keep it grounded in that way for the first couple

(01:10:20):
and then I think it became obvious that like, we're
really just a found footage anthology.

Speaker 3 (01:10:24):
It's not.

Speaker 1 (01:10:25):
And I'm okay with that, and that's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Yeah, And I think that, yeah, in terms of preserving
the VHS neess of it all. I mean, look, there's
still a bunch of people that are like, you know,
analog freaks these days, where they'll collect VHS's, you know,
and they'll have that sort of love of the old technology,
and so you could easily have you know, you could
even have somebody recording on their phone with a VHS
filter on it or something, right, you know sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Well, that's why I was like a lot of these
it didn't come across to me that these people had,
like the girls didn't have a VHS camera. I assumed
it was on their phone and it's me not thinking
because there weren't really years.

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Put on this except for kids. They were explicitly says
ninety two, which.

Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
Is awesome because it does really remind me of Glamor
Remember glaber shots.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 1 (01:11:08):
I never got to get one done, and I wanted
one so bad.

Speaker 3 (01:11:11):
Surprised you didn't get one done. It seems like something
you might do.

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
Your I don't afford it. My mom was like, absolutely not.
They were expensive.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
I did not know that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:18):
Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I didn't realize how if they
were that pricey.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
So yeah, it's interesting. You're right, like this VHS franchise
always pulls with the found footage device, like, but the short,
the only one that feels like it was on a
camera was kid Print. Interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
Yeah, and I think that you can definitely stretch the boundaries,
you know, to accommodate a lot of other aspects. And
if they are insistent on making one every year, which
I love that they do, that, you know, yeah, you're
going to have to sort of break the rules a
little bit here and there.

Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
Yeah, and that's why I like the wrap around story
with the diet fantasma because it's thematic more than literal.
It doesn't directly explain all the other shorts. It's just
like the universe where consumption of evil is a real mechanism,
and that is kind of what they're trying. This one,
I feel like, was trying to say something with a
lot of their stories where the other ones weren't.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Yeah, if Beyond was just like, oh what if aliens
exist or whatever, this is a little bit more you know,
the possession of the nature of evil and spirits and
other worldly aspects you know are out there and if
you mess with them, you know, this is the kind
of consequences you might get.

Speaker 3 (01:12:27):
Sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:28):
Yeah, it's not the it might not be the best
entry in the series, but it's a top tier special
and I really especially for fans of Halloween Horror. It's
more playful and seasonally themed as you know, more seasonally
themed the franchise has done before, and like we said,
we really kind of hope it makes allowances and does
that it doesn't hit the heights of you know, the

(01:12:50):
first one, or like I said, I think ninety four
was one of my favorites. VHS two and ninety four
were probably my favorites. Yeah, but this might come in
as three, like it delivers enough horror and enough gore
and enough nostalgia to please longtime fans like myself, especially
if you're not into like the horror with the VHS twist,
because again, like I kind of forgot that that needed

(01:13:12):
to be the main point of it, and I didn't
think that. I thought that they filmed a lot of
the stuff on their phones, you know, I'm not envisioning
especially in like Kuchakuchuku or fun Size, like the people
with cameras in their hands like that. It's got. It
has a nice through message of adulthood and people not
wanting to grow up and messing with forces we don't

(01:13:32):
understand and toxic relationships. I think this one had a
lot more themes like that and had something to say
about those things than the other ones did, if that
makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:13:44):
And I think that as an aesthetic as as a
sort of tonal thematic idea, the VHS series will always
have an appeal to me because it harkens back to that,
you know, analog era of Supernatural, which we've talked about
in our Conjuring episodes and other things too. I mean,
we just talked about the Stone tape as something. I

(01:14:06):
recommended that idea that like something you a medium that
you can record on which generally is accepted to not
be flexible with, you know, even though that's maybe not true.
But in the way that you would maybe capture video
of something supernatural on your smartphone, on your iPhone, we
might see that, or I might see that now and

(01:14:27):
be like, oh that's AI or oh that's that's some
nonsense that like you did with the computer, who cares
not real there, Even if you're messing with the VHS
image or VHS looking image, there's still in your in
my brain at least, a feeling of their similitude where
it's like, oh, that's got to be real because it's VHS,
like you can't mess with you can't go back in
and edit that, you know, in the way you could
do with film or the digital video. So I think

(01:14:50):
that gives it its powers as a concept, and I
think that, you know, that's why it's able to be
continued as long as it has.

Speaker 1 (01:14:57):
And I'm not saying stop keep going VHS, keep going.
I'm going to show up. I'm going to keep watching them,
even if I don't love them, I'll still show up
and watch the next one, and I thought this one
was great. Honestly your last two loved them.

Speaker 2 (01:15:10):
Yeah, yeah, and if you go on a high note, yeah,
it's a great entry.

Speaker 3 (01:15:14):
It's a great entry eating matter they do.

Speaker 1 (01:15:17):
But honestly, I mean I would like some royalties. But
VHS Christmas needs to be coming, because what else do
you do after this?

Speaker 3 (01:15:24):
Yeah? Lookin we could film a segment for VHS Christmas.

Speaker 1 (01:15:27):
Oh, I could do it. Well, do it, get to
the writing board, don't tell them our secrets, no spoilers. Okay,
so that's kind of it for VHS h that found
anything else?

Speaker 3 (01:15:40):
No, I think we can move on to recommendations.

Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
Do you have your recommendation?

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:15:46):
I don't think I've talked about this as a recommendation.
I'm sure I've talked about it on our Terrifier episode.
But it's twenty thirteen. It's all Hallows Eve, which was
directed written by Damian Leoni.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Oh yeah, we did a whole thing about that.

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
So yeah, if you've already, if you already haven't watched that,
watched that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
So that's one and my other one is not as good,
but it's still worth maybe checking out, which is twenty
fifteen's Tales of Halloween.

Speaker 3 (01:16:12):
Have you seen that?

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
Ash I have? Okay, yeah, not my favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
It's not it's not the most it's not as consistent
as as the VHS films as an anthology, but I
do think that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
Does Kevin Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
No, No, that's that's Holidays. I think it's called Tales
of Halloween. Yeah, and you had segments directed by Darrenlyn
Bausman as well as Axel Carolyn, Lookie McKee and the
big one. Mike Mendez also did one, but also I
think the big one is Neil Marshall's, which we just
talked about with Dog Soldiers. He does finally segment in

(01:16:46):
Tales of Halloween called Bad Seed, which is about the pumpkin.

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
I really do like that one.

Speaker 1 (01:16:52):
I do like that one too.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
It does give you the Halloween vibes. It's an anthology.

Speaker 2 (01:16:55):
And again with anthologies, since I was saying earlier, you know,
if you don't like what you're seeing at the moment,
you know, wait until the next one comes around.

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):
Maybe you like that better.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
And I think at least this one has a great
closing segment, and I think that's worth watching.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
I'm going to be real boring and I'm going to
say VHS two because if you want to see like
where all this started, if you haven't already, I think
that VH two is a little bit more polished than
VH one and has a little bit more money thrown up,
whereas someone like us, like we like that raw very first.
You know, you have no money to put this together,

(01:17:27):
and that's what VHS one is. But VHS two, if
you want to see something a little bit more polished,
a little more put together, that's the one to watch.
And then I even if I did suggest it before
as above, so below, that's one of my favorite found
footage movies of all time. Uh, definitely check that out
and I will talk about that at some point on here.

(01:17:50):
We got a little bit of feedback not too long
ago that I thought would be fun to read with
this one because it's witchy. This feedback is from Ianenberg,
and he said, first off, hope you're all well and
congrats on launching the Patreon. I had a question for you, Ash.
I had a little different take on the end of
weapons that I have not heard anyone talking about and

(01:18:12):
was wondering if I was missing something which slash spell related.
I know you're a witch expert of some sort, so
help me out. I'm going to stop everyone here. If
you have not seen weapons, leave now. We're not going
to say anything else. Thank you for listening. Join our patriot,
good day, so he can. Ian continues, Alex was watching
Gladys cast these spells over the course of her moving

(01:18:34):
into his parents' house. He absorbed enough knowledge to cast
the spell of his own, which resulted in the captive
children killing Gladys. If this is the case, wouldn't he
have been able to break the spells on the kids
and his parents. I know there's a brief explanation that
they had been under the spell for too long, so
there was a lasting damage. But what if What if

(01:18:56):
Alex decided not to lift the spell in the children
because he had been bullied by them, and chose not
to break the spell on his parents because he knew
that after the trauma he endured with them, he would
never see them the same or feel safe with them again.
Maybe he still has the thorn bush and allowed certain
kids who weren't so mean to him to have the
normalcy and allow them to speak again. Poke holes into

(01:19:18):
my theory. I'm curious about what you think with your
knowledge of all things witchy, or if I might have
completely missed something, I give this more this movie four
aids needles out of five cheers.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Ian, that's a really before you say your answerestion, I
think it's a really interesting feedback.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
That's really cool.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
It is really cool. So what I said back to
Ian and with my witch knowledge, is it's two different spells.
You can watch her cast that spell as many times
as you want, but breaking a spell is a completely
different spell. So if he wasn't privy to the knowledge
of what it takes to break the spell, there's no
way to get these people out of it. The only

(01:19:57):
thing that he got to see was how the spell
was cast, which is why he was able to use
it against her doing the same spell back to her.
But he didn't see or didn't have knowledge or read
any books or have any information on how to break
a spell. And it's two different spells to cast a
spell and to break a spell, or all different things involved.

Speaker 2 (01:20:18):
Yeah, and then from my media studies perspective, what I
would say to this is I definitely one hundred percent
believe that us being led to possibly suspect Alex for
the motive of being bullied by his classmates as why
his classmates were taken is a red hearing. And the
reason for that is because we're not ever shown Alex

(01:20:40):
explicitly emotionally reacting to being bullied or saying like I'm
going to get those kids or whatever. We don't have
that as a setup, so we don't really know that
he's thinking that. We can assume it might be feeling
that way, sure, but I believe that really it's there
for red hearing purposes of. While we're watching the movie
for the first time, Zach Creiger is saying, Oh, it's
maybe this kid because all his just his classmates, not

(01:21:03):
anybody other from any of the class you know, being taken.
And really I think that the answer is less to
do with any emotional reasons. But I think I might
have talked about this on our episode. But Glad, it's
just having immediate access to those kids only through her,
her nephew, her through Alex. Yeah, and so it's incidental essentially,
And I do like that you're trying to tie in

(01:21:25):
the uh sort of possible emotional you know, you know,
traumatic headspace that Alex might be in.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
But I do think I do it if I could.
You know, it makes sense, You're like, fuck that kid, Yeah,
you can stand in the basement.

Speaker 2 (01:21:37):
It does make sense, But I don't think we're given
any information to have it be supported by the story.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Right, Yeah, he didn't learn how to break the spell.
He only learned how to cast the spell. And like
again again, those are two very different things. But thank
you so much for writing in and asking me about
my witchy thing. Anybody wants any more information, I'll give
you my POV. So our next episode will be our

(01:22:02):
Halloween recommendations episode, So everybody buckle up for that. We're
in spooky season for real.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
Hell yeah, I'm planning on because I think we've we
You and I have done this a couple of years
in the row now, so I've I've gone through my
must seas every year.

Speaker 3 (01:22:17):
So now I'm getting into the weeds.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
Of like what we're getting obscured?

Speaker 3 (01:22:19):
Getting obscure.

Speaker 2 (01:22:20):
So I'm going to be watching a bunch of Halloween
themed movies that I've seen before, but I'm going to
be rewatching them and seeing like, Okay, is this one
I want to talk?

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
I mean, you didn't do what I did. I just
picked the same two movies kind of So I have
to leave Night of the Demons because I cannot, I
will not, I will not recommend the third one. I can't,
and don't even bring up the fourth one to me, please,
oh my god.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
Okay, so yeah, we'll be getting to that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
We'll see you then.

Speaker 2 (01:22:51):
Thank you all for joining us for this episode of
Bill and Ashley's You could find my work in the
show notes links below. Check us out on social media.
You can find this show at strandipanda dot com and
everywhere else you get your podcasts. If you have questions
or comments, please feel free to write to us at
Bill and ash Tara Theater at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:23:10):
We're dying to hear you. See you in your night
days

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}V/H/S/Halloween

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

V/H/S/Halloween

Stuff You Should Know